State by State Data

Keeping California's Promise

California’s Master Plan for higher education, adopted in 1960, guarantees a place in college for every state resident who can benefit. The historic blueprint produced systems and programs that have served as models for other states and for countries across the globe. Now that much of the rest of the world has caught up to California, the state needs to find new ways to keep its promise.

TICAS engages in this work with a focus on the role of financial aid in serving the 2.1 million students at California’s community colleges.

Letter supporting the California State Assembly’s Proposition 98 financial aid proposals
June 4, 2015 - Letter to leaders of the California Conference Committee on the Budget, expressing TICAS’s strong support of the Assembly’s proposals to provide a supplemental access grant to Cal Grant B recipients at the California Community Colleges (CCCs) to more fully cover the costs of books, supplies, and transportation and to increase categorical program spending on CCC financial aid administration.

Coalition Letter Urging Strengthening of Cal Grants in ‘15-‘16 California State Budget
June 4, 2015 - Coalition letter to leaders of the California Conference Committee on the Budget, urging them to increase the number of state Cal Grants available and increase their size. Increasing the number of competitive awards and the size of the Cal Grant B access award are the two most effective financial aid investments the state can make to promote access, affordability, and success for students at all types of colleges.

Modeling Changes to the Competitive Cal Grant Scoring Matrix
April 13, 2015 - While some California college students are entitled to state Cal Grants, more than 300,000 applicants must compete for one of just 22,500 available “competitive” grants. With so many more eligible applicants than available grants, the California Student Aid Commission (CSAC) relies on a scoring matrix to determine which applicants receive grant offers. At CSAC’s request, TICAS analyzed the impact of making changes to the scoring matrix to better target the awarding of grants to the most disadvantaged applicants. This memo outlines TICAS’ findings and recommendations.

2015-16 California Budget: Getting the Greatest Returns on New Financial Aid Investments
January 10, 2015 - California Governor Jerry Brown released his proposed budget for the 2015-16 fiscal year, and it includes some much-needed resources for higher education. For the state's public universities it provides new funding, contingent upon UC and CSU keeping tuition flat, and it supplies community colleges with more funding, including $200 million to invest in student success. Within financial aid programs, the budget plan includes a boost to the Middle Class Scholarship program.

California Budget Includes Long Overdue Financial Aid Increase
June 24, 2014- The California state budget signed in June will make an important down payment towards college affordability for the state's most financially strapped students. The agreement includes a long-overdue increase to the Cal Grant B access award, which helps California's lowest income students pay for books, supplies, transportation, and other non-tuition costs of attending college. Under the new budget agreement, the award would increase from $1,473 to $1,648 - a much-needed step in the right direction after decades of stagnation and a recent cut.

Playing the Cal Grant Odds
June 6, 2014 - Noting there are 16 eligible applicants for every authorized "competitive" Cal Grant award, our blog postfound that it's tougher for an eligible student to earn a competitive Cal Grant than to beat the odds in Vegas, get into an Ivy League college, or get drafted to the Major Leagues.

California Budget Proposal Includes Narrow but Important Cal Grant Fix
January 9, 2014 - Blog post highlighting the narrow but very important improvement to the state Cal Grant programincluded in the California Governor's budget proposal that would allow students who become ineligible because their family income rises above Cal Grant thresholds to reenter the program should their income drop again.

Strengthening Cal Grants to Better Serve Today's Students
April 8, 2013 - TICAS and more than a dozen other student, civil rights, business, and college access organizations have come together to release a new analysis of how Cal Grants could better serve low-income college students. The Cal Grant program provides $1.5 billion in need-based grant aid that each year helps hundreds of thousands of Californians pay for college. However, the report finds that many needy college students either do not receive Cal Grants or receive less than others with more resources.

Cal Grant Snapshot
September 24, 2012 - Illustrated fact sheet on the Cal Grant program, which provides more than $1.5 billion in need-based financial aid to California's college students, representing a significant state investment in college access and success.

Letter in Support of AB 1637
April 11, 2012 - Letter submitted by a coalition of organizations representing students, teachers, consumers, and civil rights in support of California bill AB 1637, which would better target Cal Grant dollars towards colleges where students have a greater chance of success and less chance of being saddled with debts they cannot repay.

Cal Grant GPA Increases Would Hurt College Completion Rates
March 6, 2012 - Governor Brown's 2012-13 proposed budget would substantially raise the grade point average (GPA) thresholds required to receive new Cal Grants, locking out more than a third of applicants currently eligible for entitlement grants -- particularly those who need Cal Grants to stay enrolled and complete college.

Letter in Support of AB 970
March 21, 2011 - Letter in support of AB 970 (Fong), which would provide first-year tuition and fee benefits to Cal Grant B recipients.

The structure of Cal Grant B was designed under the assumption that low-income students would attend community colleges, where tuition and fee costs are not a barrier. Today, it has the unintended consequence of steering qualified students away from attending four-year colleges. AB 970 would address this inequity, sending a clearer message of affordability to California's low-income students.

Financial Aid Facts at California Community Colleges
March 17, 2010 - Hundreds of thousands of California Community College (CCC) students are eligible for federal Pell Grants but do not apply, leaving up to $500 million unclaimed in 2009-10. This fact sheet compares CCC financial aid application rates to the rest of the country, and also examines the inadequacy of financial aid that some CCC students do receive.

Quick Facts About Community Colleges and Financial Aid, 2007-08
May 13, 2009 - About one in four full-time college students in the U.S. - 2.2 million students - attends a community college. Of full-time community students who applied for financial aid, 80 percent did not get as much aid as they needed in 2007-08. We also found that although a relatively small percentage of community college students take out private student loans, these borrowers were much more likely than their peers at four-year institutions to miss out on cheaper federal loans.

Governor Proposes Eliminating Cal Grants for More Than 200,000 Students this Fall
March 26, 2009 - In direct contrast to federal efforts to increase college access during the current recession, Governor Schwarzenegger has proposed eliminating all new Cal Grants, along with deep cuts to public university systems and other essential state programs and services. The Cal Grant program has been an integral part of California’s commitment to college access and affordability for more than 50 years. Since 2001, all qualified graduating high school students have been guaranteed a Cal Grant.

Paving the Way: How Financial Aid Awareness Affects College
October 2008 - In a time of over-rising college costs, financial aid is critical to increase access and success. Federal, state, and institutional aid programs help to ensure that students can afford higher education regardless of economic background. Financial aid is most effective when students and families learn about it early enough to make the right choices and plans about high school coursework, family savings, work and earnings, and college options.

This literature review explores the questions of how and when students and families learn about college costs and financial aid, and how the timing and substanceof that information may impact college-going behavior.

Cal Grant Cuts Would Hit Community College Students Hard
March 27, 2008 - Many more community college students than students at California’s four-year colleges would lose financial aid under GovernorSchwarzenegger’s proposed budget for 2009. This issue brief finds thatthe budget-cutting plan would eliminate new Cal Grant awards for 45percent of community college students who would have received them,compared to five percent of would-be recipients at the University of California and 10 percent in the California State University system.